It was more than a dozen years ago, but Brooklynite Brittany Cameron remembers clearly her day in court at age 16. She had been arrested for robbery, and a judge in adult court weighed her fate.
Her worst fear could soon come to pass: She’d be sent back to Riker’s Island — long considered one of the most dangerous and inhumane lockups in the country. Cameron had already spent three weeks at the adult jail that housed thousands on a bleak island on the East River. In the juvenile unit there, guards meted out beatings, teens attacked each other and solitary confinement was commonplace.
“Even being with the adolescents was terrifying,” said Cameron, now 31.
But there’s another memory from that day in court as well. A stranger sitting in the back. He raised his hand and told the judge about Exalt, a new program for youth that offered an alternative to incarceration and a chance to gain work experience and graduate high school with her peers. The judge agreed.
“My lawyer was really trying to advocate for me,” she recalled. “And it really didn’t seem promising until this random angel from God gave me the option of going to Exalt.”
Exalt, a New York City-based nonprofit founded in 2006, aims to reduce recidivism rates for court-involved teens aged 15 to 19 through paid internships and two years of mentorship. Starting in February, the nonprofit will open its program outside the city for the first time, serving 10 young people in Syracuse. Those eligible have been recently arrested or released from an adult or youth detention facility, or sentenced to probation.
Once serving just 100 participants in Brooklyn, Exalt has now expanded to assist 5,200 youth across the city. Participants attend an in-person 21-week program that teaches them skills such as resume-building, interviewing and financial literacy.
After six weeks, youth are matched with internships at institutions such as law firms, art galleries and social justice organizations for eight weeks, and are paid $18 an hour. The program culminates with ongoing alumni support. The staff includes program coordinators, teachers, an internship liaison, education advocate and an alumni advisor.
Teens who are referred to the program go through a four-week interview process, and must be enrolled in high school or another educational program. For participants with open cases, mentors can step in, arguing for reduced sentencing by testifying in court or providing regular updates to probation officers and judges.
Exalt CEO Gisele Castro said the referrals have resulted in more access to “fair and appropriate sentencing. Her organization reports that 75% of participants who came in with open cases had them reduced or dismissed. The organization also tracks young people’s outcomes in school and future interaction with the criminal justice system. According to its statistics, 95% of those who completed the program in New York City were not reconvicted two years after leaving.
Typically, Exalt staff also stay in touch with their alumni for at least those two years. But this contact often goes much further. Alum Princess Kelly said she still feels like “part of the family” because her Exalt mentors continued to check on her progress more than a decade later.
A former foster youth, Kelly said the program was an opportunity for her to stay out of the cycle of poverty and violence prevalent in her neighborhood.
“The program was keeping me safe, keeping me distracted,” she said. “It just provided me with a setting that I had never been in before — a bunch of folks that really cared that I was a youth in the system who hadn’t been on the right trajectory.”
She’s now a Child Protective Specialist at New York City’s child welfare agency, and routinely refers youth to the program.
Advocates have long pushed for alternatives to detention such as community-based programs for young people who commit crimes, citing mounting evidence that lockups do more harm than good and do not enhance public safety. Incarcerated youth who are locked up are more likely to be exposed to harmful experiences, drop out of school and end up in the adult justice system, according to research from organizations such as the Pew Center and Vera Institute. In an op-ed for The Imprint, former Commissioner of New York City’s Departments of Probation and Correction Vincent Schiraldi pointed to research conducted in New York City that showed significant drops in crime in neighborhoods with the highest number of nonprofit, community-based youth development programs.
Before launching its program in Syracuse, Exalt staff met with judges, county and city officials, the Onondaga County District Attorney’s office, and representatives of community based organizations, schools, colleges and employers in the area.
“They saw things that I didn’t even see in myself. It helped me realize that I was more than what I was going through at the time.”
— Brittany Cameron, Exalt alumnus
In an interview, CEO Castro said the nonprofit expanded to Syracuse for its first move outside New York City because of its size and the network of organizations in the city willing to work with young people and provide internships. Exalt will join Syracuse organizations — such as the Center for Community Alternatives — that work to steer youth from crime by offering substance abuse recovery, housing support and interactive journaling.
Exalt receives its funding through public grants, private donations and philanthropies. The Syracuse pilot is primarily funded by a $1.5 million grant from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice.
Castro said Exalt’s model works because it goes beyond helping youth avoid further arrests — it focuses on them becoming employable adults. That support is often lacking.
“We haven’t been deeply investing in young people,” said Castro. “Our philosophy is: If you give young people the very best — can they change?”
She speaks from personal experience. More than 30 years ago, Castro’s older brother was arrested in New York City. In a promotional video for her organization, she described the helplessness her family felt trying to navigate a complex justice system.
“Even with the best legal representation, we were not able to support our brother,” Castro said. “I began to understand that within the legal system, no one really cared. I could not understand how quickly someone’s life could be altered.”
Following her family’s experience, Castro dedicated her career to organizations that focused on jail alternatives, education and employment programs for justice-involved youth and adults.
Exalt’s focus on teaching participants to “develop a worker’s identity at an early age — it’s what ensures that young people are able, when they become adults, to retain jobs, which is economic mobility,” Castro said.
During her four-and-a-half-month program, Cameron learned how to fill out job applications and avoid teen slang during mock interviews. She practiced her public speaking skills. Cameron ended up interning at a nonprofit called ‘Bottomless Closet,’ where she discovered her love for fashion and styling, and that eventually led her to cosmetology school.
She credited Exalt staff with teaching her to keep calm and de-escalate interactions with police. The staff pushed her, but also built her confidence and helped her plan for a future, even when she felt like giving up.
“They would encourage me and tell me, ‘You’re so smart. You have so much going for yourself. You’re so talented, you can do this,’” Cameron recalled. “At the time, they saw things that I didn’t even see in myself. It helped me realize that I was more than what I was going through at the time.”
